Drobo vs. HP Mediasmart Server

[rmccoy]

I am hoping someone can help me out here.

 

I need to upgrade my external storage at my house. I am debating on either getting an HP Mediasmart Server or a Drobo FS.

 

My basic needs are:

- Storage that is protected if a drive fails.

- Ability to share/access files over a network.

- Remotely access files when away from home.

- Serve media files to a few computers and my xbox 360.

 

I do some freelance rendering and design work out of my house and I really need to have a better backup solution. I use an online backup service for now but I really want to have something in my home along with the online option.

 

Does anyone have experience using these machines in a freelance environment? I do some networked rendering but not really all that much.

 

Thanks for any suggestions or help.

[Fernando Lino]

Drobo is a little bit expensive...it doesn't come with hard drives.

another good option could be http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11471

I have one of those and it works great, very stable in my opinion.

 

Fernando

[rmccoy]

Thanks for your share. The Lacie is a little too pricey for me. They do look like they would run pretty nice. It's definately a step up from the HP I got.

 

I went ahead and purchased the HP MediaSmart Server and so far I'm happy with it. I'm still in the process of getting everything setup and organized.

 

I'm trying to figure out if I can run my backburner manager and vray license server from it. Does anyone have any experience with these and using windows home server?

[Jeff Mottle]

Too bad I missed this. I upgraded my NAS a few weeks ago to a Synology and get 90-130MB/s UL/DL speeds and it was super easy to set up. http://forums.cgarchitect.com/61836-synology-ds1010-nas.html

[rmccoy]

That's a pretty nice looking setup Jeff!

 

I just got my server in this evening. I haven't had enough of a chance to play around to really figure things out. But so far I like it. The HP has been really easy to set up and get the networking taken care of. My only complaint is that it does not include a raid setup. You can do folder duplication on to a different disk which provides some protection in case of a drive failure.